The immense growth in cellular communications requires that wireless infrastructure be used as intelligently as possible. Newer wireless access networks, such as Long Term Evolution (LTE) wireless access networks, are designed to use bandwidth more efficiently and to more efficiently conduct communications. In LTE, a wireless User Equipment (UE) can be allocated a traffic channel and a signaling channel by a wireless access node, wherein the UE can exchange both signaling and communications with the wireless access node. For a communication from a wireless access node to individual UEs, LTE uses Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) digital modulation. In OFDMA, subsets of sub-carriers are assigned to individual UEs, allowing simultaneous low data rate transmission from several users. As a result, an individual UE can be allocated a time slot and a subcarrier frequency band. For a communication from individual UEs to the wireless access node, LTE employs Single-Carrier Frequency-Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) digital modulation.
Carrier aggregation (CA) is a new development in wireless access networks. In carrier aggregation, a UE is allocated multiple traffic channels by a wireless access node and the UE can use the multiple (i.e., aggregated) traffic channels for exchanging higher rate communications with the wireless access node. The multiple traffic channels can be allocated when conditions are favorable. Carrier aggregation can enable higher communication rates between the UE and the wireless access node.
A drawback of carrier aggregation is that the higher communication rates can correspondingly cause higher signaling levels. The increased signaling levels due to carrier aggregation can become a bottleneck, wherein the traffic rates can be limited by the signaling bottleneck.